THE BOTTOM LINE

While the majority of Americans apparently support assisted
suicide and euthanasia, the fact that the wording of survey
questions seems to greatly influence their opinion implies that
many people's views on the subject are not clearly formed or firm.
As with abortion, opinion seems to fall into gray areas, where
certain situations hold sway (e.g., the extent of legal safeguards,
the role of family members, the extent of a patient's pain or life
expectancy, etc.), rather than into black and white areas.

Americans are most likely to base their opinion about these
issues on their religious belief and on personal experience. A 2001
poll by the Pew Research Center shows 27 percent identifying
religious belief as the biggest influence on their opinion, 24
percent saying personal experience, 13 percent saying the media, 11
percent their education and 8 percent friends' and family's
views.

Both practices are gaining acceptance, internationally and
stateside. In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to
legalize voluntary euthanasia. A January 2002 Gallup poll found
that 79 percent of Canadians said yes when asked, â€œWhen a
person has an incurable disease that is immediately
life-threatening and causes that person to experience great
suffering, do you or do you not think that competent doctors should
be allowed by law to end the patient's life through mercy killing,
if the patient has made a formal request in writing?â€? (Note,
however, that the very high rate of acceptance can be attributed to
the very specific phrasing of the question as well as to the use of
the term â€œmercy killingâ€? in place of
â€œeuthanasiaâ€? or â€œsuicide,â€? which might
likely have set off alarms and led to lower acceptance.)

Americans don't think Oregon's Death with Dignity Act should be
overturned. In a December 2001 Harris Interactive poll, nearly 6 in
10 say it's wrong for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to
challenge that law.